Sue is one of the researchers that works in Danita’s research group. Don is Sue’s husband. (Does this make Don some kind of a brother-in-law through work?) This information is relevant because Don got excited about my trip to Maine. They invited us over to their house for dinner so he could pump me for information. Somehow it came out that Don tried to do a one-day ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway and found it very, very hard. In fact, he didn’t make it to his destination. He flagged down a pickup truck and hitched a ride to where he was staying. The next day, he had a local point out a shorter road going back. That sounded like a challenge to me. We kept egging each other on about riding the Blue Ridge. Finally, we decided to ride the parkway from Ashland, NC to Front Royal, VA (where it ends). After we get to Front Royal, we will ride on to Harper’s Ferry, WV. From there, I will ride home. Don might have Sue pick him up in Harper’s Ferry.

We need places to stay. Don can’t camp. I don’t want to carry the weight of camping gear in the mountains. We definitely do not want to ride into town, because that means riding down the side of a mountain, then riding back up the next morning. Mountains tend to be 2500 feet or so above civilization. Fortunately, there are enough places either on the parkway or just off the parkway that we can do the ride. These tend to be mountain vacation resorts. Monday, we made our hotel reservations for the entire trip, except for two places that aren’t open yet. This means every day is already planned out. We will ride the prescribed miles no matter the weather.

Blue Ridge Parkway

You can see a map of the trip here. (Click the picture to make it larger.) Notice that we will climb a total of 53,000 feet. That’s 10 miles! This in spite of the fact that Front Royal is 3,000 feet lower in elevation than is Ashland. The blue rectangles mark our hotels. We are planning shorter days where we can. (There are only so many hotels on the Blue Ridge Parkway). We will do the 500 mile ride in 2 weeks (July 12 – 26).

My bike training is just beginning. The weather has stayed stubbornly cool, with highs between 40 and 50 degrees. Yesterday, we had our first warm day, with a high of 62. It was my first ride this season with short sleeves and short pants. There was lots of skin to slather with sun block. It felt great. I even managed to work up a drop of sweat near the end of the ride — my first drop of sweat for the season! It was back to cool weather today, but next week we might get temperatures in the 70s. If the weather stays good, it won’t take long to build my distance and hill-climbing capacity. I’m champing at the bit, because there’s no doubt I will have to be in better shape than I was last year.

There’s not a lot of other news for us. We’re going to a concert at the Engineering Club tomorrow. The Engineering Club was once a very elegant house in Mount Vernon — the very fashionable neighborhood in downtown Baltimore (near Baltimore’s George Washington Monument). We’ll be hearing the Concert Artists of Baltimore perform. They’re playing some music that most folks don’t hear very often. It’s not exactly Beethoven, but it should be a fun concert.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.